FOOD & DRINK

Food in London can be
dreadful, and can be fantastic (generally if money
is no object.) However, unlike Paris where you're
guaranteed decent food for about £10 a head,
in London be prepared to spend double that - and the
quality varies so much you can't just walk in and
expect to eat well, unless you're from America's
'fly-over states'... Outside London the picture is
bleak indeed. It's not that the Brits can't cook: we
have a fine array of great chefs and some of the
best restaurants in the world (the Fat Duck in Bray
outside London vies with El Bulli in Spain for that
title, and the deputy chefs from both restaurant
have their own establishments now in South East
London) it's just that to eat well costs so much.
Think £50/$90 a head and then some at a good
restaurant, or one that's any way near fashionable.
We think the best strategy is simply to survive
without injuring your wallet or digestive system. If
your visit to London is part of a European tour,
save gastronomy for France, where it's cheaper. That
said there are a number of perfectly good, cheapish
(for Britain) restaurants where we eat regularly -
you'll undoubtedly meet us there if you follow our
advice.
Few of the expensive restaurants make the grade
internationally - for those that do, browse 'The
Good Food Guide'or Harden's Guide at
your local bookstore (or online see our guidebooks
page) - we contribute to their reviews annually, and
unlike Zagat they don't give points for attractive
waiters. Tourist-orientated restaurants, which
include the venerable 'Simpsons on the Strand' are
usually dire even by UK standards.

Another thing we deplore about London is the absence
of any real cafes - the late lamented Dome chain excepted.
There are more coffee bars (Starbucks, Nero, Costa,
etc) per square mile than we've seen anywhere, the
latest tally was 2000. In fact we found Seattle a
coffee desert compared to London. Most operate on
the MacDonalds' fast turnaround principle, though
increasing competition is forcing them to smarten up
their act. The coffee is good but we miss the
atmosphere of cafes in Vienna or Paris. A good
newcomer that's bucking the trend is Cafe@, which is
spreading from its base in the East End (on Brick
lane), to the South East (Trendy Bermondsey st -
where our offices are) good fairtrade coffee, good
vibe, great music. Recommended - it's definitely our
favourite.

A final groan: English social life revolves around
alcohol to a degree we've not seen anywhere east of
Poland. It's difficult if you take alcohol in
moderation. The average Brit likes to get drunk, and
then roar up and down the street in an aggressive
manner, before vomiting and going for a curry. This
is not new and was the chief complaint of 18th
century visitors like de Sassure - his descriptions
of London life ring true even today. Dostoievsky
remarked on the Londoners' rowdy consumption of
alcohol and a leading Moscow journalist told us: "In
Moscow we have a problem with alcohol, it is true,
but in London you have a bigger problem with
drunkenness."
We avoid the town centre on Friday (5pm-midnight)
and Saturday (after 9pm) nights for this reason, and
some women we know avoid trains after 23:30 as they
can be a bit rowdy (though drunkenness is not
confined to the male sex). If there is a football
match on then the situation is even worse. Our New
York and Parisian friends find this quite off
putting, though it must be said that little real
violence does occur, anywhere.

To find a restaurant and for general advice we
recommend Harden's Guide, which is now online. We
went both to school and University with Richard
Harden and can vouch for his taste and acumen.
They're online here and have a restaurant
finder search engine which works by price, locale
and cuisine. For the restaurants mentioned below we
suggest you use Hardens for a second opinion.
If you need the certainty of being able to book
online you can try Toptable
but don't expect the reviews to be too objective -
they're taking a cut. They do do menus and have
frequent offers, though as with other offers, the
menu can sometimes be downgraded to fit the price.
The Evening Standard newspaper fequently does
token-based offers to eat (albeit 'special' -ie
'cheap' menus) at top restaurants.

Good Cheap eats

For cheap eats the axis that runs along the south
side of Leicester Square (Irving St and Panton
Street) is a magnet: old faithfuls like the Stockpot
& the West End Kitchen serve cheap and cheerful
food, very similar to what a stereotypical English
family would eat at home (Lancashire Hotpot,
Shepherd's Pie, Fish and Chips etc) and the
competition between these neighbours drives the
price down. There's also a Chinese and an Indian
buffet, and a branch of the Singaporean veggie
chain, Woodlands. Wagamamma ( a decent basic
choice if you need a restaurant and rated London's
most popular restaurant, though the prices have gone
up and the quality between restaurants varies a lot,
and it's noisy) have premises in the basement of an
Irving St block. However, the area can be a bit
busy, and you can do better by venturing further
afield. Remember that thie higher the rent the lower
the food quality for any given price...

For a value sit-down meal you can't beat the Tas chain
(turkish/mediterranean) for price and quality. Their
centre of operations is Bankside, but they're
spreading into Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell. Their
somewhat eclipsed rivals
Sofra are just as good, but don't quite
match on decor and charm. But they're more prevalent
in central London: Covent Garden, St Christopher's
place, and Mayfair.

Tai
Decent quality vegan and vegetarian
food at 10 Greek St in Soho and other central
locations. The buffet is £6 (£5 at
lunchtimes) and the quality of the food is very
acceptable (it's the only vegan place we'd eat at) -
all presided over by a taskmistress of a Hong Kong
owner. There's another very good value buffet
('Buffet V') at 40 New Oxford st St, between the
British Musuem and Holborn tube.

Food
for Thought Good cheap veggie
restaurant, a hundred yards from Neal's Yard and
half the price. Plate of Salad (a light meal) about
£3 - decor very 70s. Good service, good food,
low prices. 31 Neal St, Covent Garden. An oasis in a
place of high-price, low quality eateries.

Diwana
Very interesting cheap and tasty
southern Indian food, a world away from the curries
of the north that form the basic staple of the
average British curry house. Excellent lunch buffet
with dishes we'd never seen before, canteen-style,
cheap and very good service. In Drummond Street, NW1
a block north of Euston station in a street
dominated by South Indian culture, and amazing asian
sweet shops Website Highly recommended.

Ecco/Icco
No nonsense pizza, salad, panini,
coffee house at 46 Goodge St, a favourite of the
local television and advertising industry and often
full of bicycle couriers. Pizzas are £3, and
are freshly made before your eyes. Very relaxed - a
good supply of newspapers, sit outside in good
weather. The only cavil we have is with the cheap
aluminium seats. They're expanding over London, and
about to slightly change their name due to a clash
with another company. Called the Italian Coffee
Company or Icco variously. Also at 186 Drury Lane ,
Covent Garden (Ecco) and 40 Strutton Ground in
Victoria near the Cathedral (Ecco)

Wagamamma
trendy canteen-style noodle house, haunt of students
and anyone with an eye for a bargain, full meal can
be had for £10 (including drink). Fresh,
healthy food, with attitude:All over London
including: Wigmore St (behind Selfridges), Bond St,
Streatham St (near British Museum), Lexington St
(between Piccadilly and Oxford Circuses), Camden
Lock, the Royal Festival Hall South Bank, Covent
Garden (south of the Market) and Leicester Square
(Irving St).

All
Bar One & Slug and Lettuce Two
chains that serve decent food. All Bar One is
targeted at women and has the obligatory sofas,
their menu is reasonable - for about £7-8 a
head you can eat quite well in all branches -
however some won't serve children. The Slug and
Lettuce chain is another brand. Both are friendly
and offer good service and are seemingly everywhere
across town, and the UK. Avoid on Friday nights as
get very busy and loud, and on Saturday nights after
2100. At other times they can be very user-friendly
and though they don't have smoke-free zones the
aircon is efficient.

Fish
and Chips - we're a great fan of this
fatty, carb-laden snack. Costs about £3 - add
your own salt and vinegar. Less available in the
city centre than it should be. Please avoid cod or
monkfish as they're being overfished. Far more
information than you'll ever need about fish and
chips can be found here.

Cheap
Curry: at the Indian YMCA: see below.

Cuisines

French/Algerian
Momo, on Heddon St, off Regent St, is the most
fashionable, and we think, best. Madonna and other
stars hire out the whole restaurant for entertaining
friends. Their cafe is excellent for afternoon or
early evening snacks and costs 1/4 of the price.
Moro at 34 Exmouth Market, just south of King's
Cross is also excellent, if a bit far out for most
tourists. Cheaper is the Souk, between St Martin's
Lane and Charing Cross road, a few metres away from
The Mousetrap.

Sushi-bars:
none but the most expensive rivals Kyoto or
Vancouver in quality, but they can be a good source
of cheap food: Gilu Gulu on St Martin's Lane and
Ikkyu on Newport St in Chinatown offer all-you-can
eat for around £12, which is a good deal.
Ikkyu have a better branch on Tottenham Court Rd,
just by Goodge St Station. There's also a good
concentration down Brewer Street in Soho (just north
of Piccadilly Circus)

Chinese:
much of the chinese cuisine in London is
authentically chinese - ie: lowbrow, rather than
Hong Kong or San Francisco style, though of course,
all markets are catered for. Remember that 'Chinese
food' is like 'European Food' and there is a long
distance to travel between pickled herring and
fettucine. An authentic chinese restaurant will have
dual menus and be full of Chinese eating stuff
you've never seen before, unless in China itself,
and maybe not even there. A case in point is 'My Old
Place' in Petticoat Lane (Liverpool St) where we're
usually the only westerners, but it's friendly and I
can guarantee you'll eat stuff you've never
experienced before - for example the shredded chili
potato or any of the Szechuan dishes. Beware the
tastes here can be extreme.

Chinatown is just South of Soho, off Shaftsbury
avenue. Actually the better (southern style)
restaurants are in the Queensway district (near
Notting Hill), a strange mix of Lebanon and
Shanghai. The more ethnic chinese there are in a
place, usually the better the food is - the worse
the decor, the better the value for money. Having
seen the kitchens of a few of these restaurants
there really is no difference between the different
ends of the market in hygiene.
The best dim sum is to be had at the Royal China
in Queensway - right next door to the tube - it's
usually full of Chinese businessmen entertaining
clients or genteel chinese women eating chicken feet
(we've dated some of them) - booking is advised.
They also have a branch on Baker Street. Mr Wu
(branches all over town, sometimes called Mr Au)
Charing Cross Road, Irving St, Queensway does very
cheap, very basic, chinese buffets - a moneysaving
rather than a culinary experience.
In the City 'My Old Place' 88 Middlesex
Street (part of Petticoat lane Market - they also
have a branch on Bethnal Green road a mile north of
this) is the most authentic chinese we've come
across - it's really like eating in Beijing, for
better and for worse. Two menus, one for westerners,
very much in the minority, and another for the
chinese. The food, 'Northeastern cuisine' - ie
Sichuan/Beijing is nothing like eating in a
traditional westernised place in Chinatown. When
they say 'spicey' they really mean it.
If you're in South East London the Penninsula (Southern
cuisine)
restaurant on the ground floor of the Holiday Inn
next to the Millennium Dome site (North Greenwich
Tube, then 5 mins walk) is very good indeed, and
crowded with Chinese diners on Sundays for Dim
Sum

Persian
Cuisine is often over-priced, for
example on Edgware Rd but there are bargains to be
had: Mahdi on King St, Hammersmith ( a stone's throw
from Ravenscourt Park tube) is a favourite,
extremely cheap and authentic, full of Iranian
families. Fermented buttermilk is the thing to drink
and the stews and bread are fantastic. They were
prosecuted for the state of their kitchens a few
years back but have cleaned up their act since then.
We eat there regularly... we've worked in 4*
kitchens and have seen things that would make your
stomach turn ( in one posh hotel, meat dripping onto
the trifle, mould on the sponge and very fermented
fruit) and have never been put off eating at Mahdi.

Thai
food in London can be expensive, but is usually
good. Our favourite, and the best is Esarn Kheaw,
(Southern Thai/Royal cuisine) 314 Uxbridge Road,
Shepherd's Bush - a bit far out for passing trade -
we live 10 miles away and eat there for the
food. The Blue Elephant in Fulham also gets
good reviews, but isn't cheap

Vietnamese
there's a Viet enclave in Hackney/Shoreditch - just
north of Liverpool Street (Shoreditch or Old Street
tubes are nearest) - it lies on Kingsland road just
south of the Geffreye museum. Unpreposessing
surroundings but very good food - The Viet Hoa, Tay
Hoa are OK but the best of the bunch is the Song
Que Cafe - virtually next door to the
Geffreye Museum - we regularly eat there. A much
better bet than Brick Lane curries if you're in the
area and want to eat ethnic - Shoreditch/Hoxton area
is brimming with restaurants brimming with media
types so there's a lot of competition. We eat at the
Song Que at least once a month and it's one of our
favourites, not least because it's extremely cheap
(try beef in betel nut, soft shell crab, fresh
rolls, any of the soups).

Indian
(sub continental) - Britain's favourite food -
official. Indian food in England is very good, if
not authentically Indian. Actually it's mostly
Bangladeshi, but if you can find Pakistani cuisine
it's worth seeking out. The best 'Indian' food comes
from up north, in places like Bradford, but there's
little else there worthy of attention. Actually some
of the best Anglo-Indian restaurants in the world
are in London, which has taken the cuisine to heart,
refined it and amplified it. In particular the style
of 'Balti' cooking, which was invented here, like
Chop Suey was in San Francisco. Basically it means
tasty, fresh ingredients and seasoning, and should
be cooked in a small wok, and brought to your table
in it. Served with bread, not rice. It's even been
endorsed by no less an august body than the British
Medical Association, as an excellent source of
minerals (they leach out of the wok into the
food....)

However, it's a craze and virtually every Indian
Restaurant now does 'Balti'. We suggest you use
Hardens to find a good one near you. One tip is
London's Indian YMCA, which serves authentic Indian
food - for around a fiver - 41 Fitzroy Square W1. No
alcohol allowed on the premises. Which brings us
to...

Two other points - the British like their curries
hotter than the Americans or Europeans, (though much
less hot than the natives) so be careful, don't
order a vindaloo unless you've had a medical
check-up, and finally, the Indian meal is the
traditional British way to finish an evening's
drinking. Eat your meal before 23:00 or else.

BRICK LANE (Whitechapel or Shoreditch tube, but
Liverpool St is also close by) is curry city -
called 'Banglatown' to its residents, the south end
of this street (ie south of the Truman Brewery) is
wall to wall curry houses, each with touts on the
street. Best place for (Pakistani) curry is actually
the hugely popular Tayaab on Fieldgate
Street which is behind the Mosque that's opposite
the Whitechapel Art gallery (Whitechapel Tube)
expect queues, excellent food, very spicy, and huge
portions. Last time I went there five of us ate
until we were stuffed for about £25. The 'Dry
Meat' is stunning.

Persian/Afghani/Cypriot
inhabit a strip called Green Lanes in Finsbury Park
(Manor House tube, then walk north with the park on
your left. Persian and Afghani food up here is good,
but there are some Turks and Cypriots too (Check
Hardens for which is the best). There's another
turkish/cypriot enclave at the very top of Kingsland
road (vide supra) - the restaurants are OK but many
of the cafes are not women-friendly.

English Cuisine:
surprise, surprise, there is no British cuisine -
we've imported and refined all the world's cuisines
and made them our own. That said some specialties
deserve mention: School Puddings - the way
to tell a Public Schoolboy (read private if you're
from USA or Europe) is by their taste for nursery
puddings - bread and butter pudding, sticky toffee
pudding, spotted dick (don't ask) suet pudding
(contains animal fat), jam roly poly, rice pudding
and sago. They're great and we do them better than
we do French or Italian desserts. Pies just
don't ask what goes in them - you've seen Sweeny
Todd.... Actually varieties like Guinness and Beef
pie, and Steak and Kidney, if well made are great -
often they're not. Recently Cornish Pasty stalls
have been set up in stations and other late night
haunts - and offer a much better than average quick
food option: they're targeted at people with the
munchies and you can smell them several hundreds of
yards off (this is a ploy in the same way
supermarkets pump baking bread smells into their air
con units). However they can be salty and full of
saturated fats in the pastry.

Generally, the English like their meat blackened and
their vegetables boiled until they resemble lab
specimens - so be sure to specify your preference.

Vegetarian
- easy to find in London (use the Harden's website -
see our guidebook page for details) and even in
carnivore dens the vegetables aren't cooked with
lumps of meat as they are in France. South Indian
cuisine is vegetarian and there' a whole row of
restaurants on Drummond St by Euston Station that
never have to use a cleaver. The various branches of
Cranks (eg Charing Cross, Goodge St) - the best is
reputed to be Champor- Champor (they also serve
meat) in Weston St, SE1, near Borough Hospital.

Belgian
- used to be something of a cult, restaurants like Belgo
made Moules Frites a habit in the 90s - but maybe
it's just their range of Strawberry and other
flavoured beers (heartily recommended). Their
special offers (lunchtime, early evening before
18:30) offer excellent value - otherwise they can
work out expensive. The decor is great. An
experience. 50 Earlham St, Covent Garden, also in
Chalk Farm, Ladbroke Grove, Upper St,
Islington.

Afternoon tea

Our favourite meal of the day: clotted cream,
strawberry jam, Earl Grey Tea and minute cucumber
sandwiches, perhaps with a cream cake to finish.
Sundays are the best days, though nowadays such is
the popularity that you often have to book. Don't
even think about strenuous activity, or even dinner,
for at least three hours afterwards. There are
several great places to harden your arteries in
London:

The Palm Court at The
Ritz, 150 Piccadilly: (tel: 0207 493
8181) lacks the charm of Browns but makes up for it
in cachet, an enormous range of teas and food on
offer, but the price (£27) is steep). Jacket
and tie for men.

Claridge's
on Brook Street, (tel: 0207 629 8860)
is another favourite, but again the price is steep -
between £20 and £25. Dress as for
Browns, but a little less picky.

Eating/Hanging out Areas:

Soho
- high rents here mean low value. The average
restaurant works Mon-Fri to pay their rent (the land
is controlled by a handful of landlords) and only
make profit at weekends. Plenty of restaurants and
coffee bars (not cafes), but we've had as many bad
as good meals here. It's a great area to hang out,
great buskers, streetlife and a colourful history -
though small fry compared to Paris' rive gauche. The
Poets Rimbaud and Verlaine used to hang out here,
getting horribly drunk at their favourite bar on Old
Compton Street (Number 5) then staggering from pub
to pub round the area. -

St
Christopher's Place very pleasant
area with a European feel, just north of Oxford
Street, with restaurant seating out on the street.

Shepherd's
Market - sheltered enclave in
Mayfair, just north of Piccadilly - great for a
summer's evening. Currently under development so we
can't predict what will happen to the area.

Marylebone
- villagey feel to this small, wealthy, area between
Oxford St and Marylebone St.

The
Borough - great for alfresco lunch on
a Saturday, at Borough Market. Has 'Maria's Cafe'
and the Monmouth Coffee shop - two of the best
places for breakfast in London. Maria's has moved
into the main market and lost its 'greasy spoon'
premises. Monmouth do an 'open table' where you pay
£2.50 to eat as much as you can of a
top-quality continental brekkie. Nb: VERY busy on
Saturdays when the Organic/gourmet market is on.
Great place for breakfast other days of the week, or
for buying fruit 'n' veg at 4 in the morning. Also a
(small) number of decent restaurants on Bermondsey
St. London Bridge tube, including Magdalen on Tooley
St/Magdalen St - the chef is fresh from the Fat
Duck.

Brick
Lane - noted for it's curries, and
at the north end it's salt beef. Stays up til very
late, but can be a bit difficult transport-wise.
Liverpol St or Aldgate tubes.

Hoxteth
- ugly but trendy area, once full of curtain and
cloth making warehouses, now converted into trendy
bars, clubs and restaurants. Transport difficult -
Liverpool St or Old st tubes.

Hampstead
- another village, but with a million pound price
tag. Expect the likes of Sting or Naomi Campbell to
complain if you order meat.

Upper
Street This main thoroughfare through
Islington is famed for the concentration of
restaurants - the New Labour conquest of Parliament
was planned at Granita at Number 127, and there are
very few shops between the restaurants. We recommend
Turkish cuisine - due to competition the price and
quality are in opposition. If it weren't for the
traffic this would be a great hanging out place, and
Islington Green would be a major pull.

Notting
Hill Large concentration of
restaurants both north and South of the tube
station. On Kensington Church Street, which runs
south they tend to the fashionably expensive, and
clustered around Portobello road and All Saints Road
there are many trendy restaurants with a slightly
lesser price tag. It's also a centre of the largely
overlooked soft drugs trade - around Park Road -
made fashionable (again) by Bridget Jones (at number
192).

Britain's
licensing laws can be archaic and ridiculous - but
Britons' problems handling alcohol remain. The laws
are in the process of revision, but not the mores.
Basically there will be a time (often 2300) when the
establishment's ability to sell alcohol runs out,
Cindarella fashion. Traditionally a bell will be
rung and 'last orders' shouted just beforehand.
However if you eat, or the pub is actually a club,
or has a special licence, you can continue to drink.
This is largely held to date from the attempts to
get Wartime Munitions workers to work harder - but
as early as 1700 there were regulations in force
closing alehouses at 2200 in winter and 2300 in
summer - to prevent rowdiness. A good guide to
opening hours (and an invaluable source of info
about public lavatories) is HERE.

Pubs around Smithfield market actually open at 03:00
for the market traders and down the Old Kent Road
drinking goes on way into the wee hours. If a pub
locks it's doors a 'lock-in' applies and you can go
on drinking as the guest of the landlord (it's now a
private party) as long as he wants to serve you, but
no-one else can enter.

Drink is kept costly in the UK by taxes - a 'round'
can cost £20 easily. If you're drinking in
groups it's usual for one person to go to the
serving counter to buy drinks for all the others, in
rotation. If you're a skinflint you try to be the
last in the list and hope your name doesn't come up.
Paying for drinks individually is deemed bad
sportsmanship. This can prove expensive if you drink
a small number of small measures, in the company of
big boozers.

Beer - although Czech/German bottle beer is
popular, traditional British beer should not be
looked down on just because it's served at 'room
temperature' (actually cellar temperature) and has a
name like 'Old Scroat's throat remover'; the
tradition of 'real ale' is a good one, given the
economic climate and monopolisation of the market by
a few companies. Real Ale is an acquired taste, but
once acquired is rarely abandoned. Microbreweries
often brew something that's a cross between standard
and real ale.

Most pubs are owned by brewing companies and won't
sell other beers - perhaps a 'guest ale' like old
scroat's but generally pub ownership is seen as a
business like any other. A Free House, rarer, can
sell what it likes. Look out for a sticker for CAMRA
the real ale accrediting body.